The United States Senate refused, Wednesday, July 21, to begin at this stage the examination of a plan of investment in the infrastructures of 1,200 billion dollars (1,017 billion euros), central in the Joe Biden’s strategy, who despite everything was optimistic about the rest of the parliamentary procedure.
Republican elected officials, who have a blocking minority, opposed the opening of parliamentary debates during the first test for this gigantic plan, very dear to the Democratic president.
Almost a month ago, the Democratic President announced that he had come to an agreement with elected officials from both parties to invest this considerable sum over eight years, in roads, airports, water networks or the Internet at broadband.
“We need more time”
Traveling to Cincinnati on Wednesday, a city in Ohio, in the northeast of the United States, Joe Biden made a point of reminding the opposition politicians of this informal agreement: “I come from a tradition (…) where, when we shake hands, that’s it, we keep our word “, he said.
” Yes ! “, he replied to a CNN journalist who questioned him during a public debate to find out if he believed in a positive vote next Monday to open the debates on the details of his plan. “And we’ll fix your damn bridge!” “, he said with laughter and applause. He was referring to an infrastructure very close to Cincinnati, the Brent Spence Bridge, whose renovation has been discussed for years, and which is considered an emblem of aging American infrastructure.
The Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, had wanted to start parliamentary work on Wednesday. But the Republicans considered the move hasty. “We need more time”, explained Senator Todd Young. Discussions stumble on the means to finance these expenses, the Republicans having rejected a device which would have strengthened the fight against tax evasion.
Even if the vote failed, the text should survive. The 22 negotiators of the two parties assured in a press release that they “Made significant progress and be ready for an agreement”. One of them, the moderate Republican Mitt Romney even mentioned the date of next Monday for the conclusion of their work.
Green energies, health or education
Beyond infrastructure “Classics”, for which he is more likely to secure Republican votes, President Joe Biden wants massive investments in green energy, health or education.
Due to Republicans’ opposition to further spending in these areas, Democrats are prepared to move forward on their own on a parallel plan, currently valued at $ 3.5 trillion. To do this, they intend to use a procedure specific to budget bills, which makes it possible to reduce to 50 out of 100 the number of votes necessary to adopt a text in the Senate (against 60 otherwise).
However, they will not be able to afford a single defection, which remains uncertain given the different sensitivities present in their ranks. “We don’t have a lot of levers”, recognized Senator Bernie Sanders, figure of the American left. “We cannot afford not to make these investments”, however stressed Friday Joe Biden during a trip to Congress.
The United States Senate refused, Wednesday, July 21, to begin at this stage the examination of a plan of investment in the infrastructures of 1,200 billion dollars (1,017 billion euros), central in the Joe Biden’s strategy, who despite everything was optimistic about the rest of the parliamentary procedure.
Republican elected officials, who have a blocking minority, opposed the opening of parliamentary debates during the first test for this gigantic plan, very dear to the Democratic president.
Almost a month ago, the Democratic President announced that he had come to an agreement with elected officials from both parties to invest this considerable sum over eight years, in roads, airports, water networks or the Internet at broadband.
“We need more time”
Traveling to Cincinnati on Wednesday, a city in Ohio, in the northeast of the United States, Joe Biden made a point of reminding the opposition politicians of this informal agreement: “I come from a tradition (…) where, when we shake hands, that’s it, we keep our word “, he said.
” Yes ! “, he replied to a CNN journalist who questioned him during a public debate to find out if he believed in a positive vote next Monday to open the debates on the details of his plan. “And we’ll fix your damn bridge!” “, he said with laughter and applause. He was referring to an infrastructure very close to Cincinnati, the Brent Spence Bridge, whose renovation has been discussed for years, and which is considered an emblem of aging American infrastructure.
The Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, had wanted to start parliamentary work on Wednesday. But the Republicans considered the move hasty. “We need more time”, explained Senator Todd Young. Discussions stumble on the means to finance these expenses, the Republicans having rejected a device which would have strengthened the fight against tax evasion.
Even if the vote failed, the text should survive. The 22 negotiators of the two parties assured in a press release that they “Made significant progress and be ready for an agreement”. One of them, the moderate Republican Mitt Romney even mentioned the date of next Monday for the conclusion of their work.
Green energies, health or education
Beyond infrastructure “Classics”, for which he is more likely to secure Republican votes, President Joe Biden wants massive investments in green energy, health or education.
Due to Republicans’ opposition to further spending in these areas, Democrats are prepared to move forward on their own on a parallel plan, currently valued at $ 3.5 trillion. To do this, they intend to use a procedure specific to budget bills, which makes it possible to reduce to 50 out of 100 the number of votes necessary to adopt a text in the Senate (against 60 otherwise).
However, they will not be able to afford a single defection, which remains uncertain given the different sensitivities present in their ranks. “We don’t have a lot of levers”, recognized Senator Bernie Sanders, figure of the American left. “We cannot afford not to make these investments”, however stressed Friday Joe Biden during a trip to Congress.
France is currently the subject of a major cyberattack, and in a relatively unprecedented way, the French authorities decided, Wednesday, July 21, to attribute it fairly head-on to a foreign power, indicating that they had identified the modus operandi of ‘a group of hackers traditionally affiliated with China. An approach assumed by the director general of the National Agency for the security of information systems (Anssi), Guillaume Poupard in person, Wednesday, at the end of the morning.
While Paris is usually very remote from this type of public denunciation – against the backdrop of the United States, in particular – the announcement of this cyberattack was made in an atypical manner via a post by Mr. Poupard on his LinkedIn account. . A post where he sees this attack as “Much more serious than the winged donkeys and their avatars”, in a thinly veiled reference to the “Pegasus” affair, and refers to a statement from the Governmental Center for Monitoring, Alert and Response to Computer Attacks (CERT), as is customary.
Entitled “APT31 operating mode attack campaign targeting France”, this press release dated July 21 indicates “Than a vast campaign of compromise affecting many French entities” is ” In progress “. “Particularly virulent”, it is driven by “The APT31 operating mode”, is it specified. The word China is not written there as such, but cyber specialists consider APT31 (for « advanced persistent threat ») as a group of hackers working from this country, generally on behalf of the Chinese state, and often for purposes of espionage or theft of intellectual property.
The targets of this cyberattack have not been specified at this stage by Anssi. But it is their importance, as well as the scale and gravity of the attack that would have prompted such communication. According to the investigations carried out by the specialists of the agency, the hackers would have compromised routers “To use them as an anonymization relay, prior to carrying out reconnaissance and attack actions”. Research is underway to establish whether or not these actions have resulted in real compromises, since the start of 2021.
Investigations regularly opened in France
According to our information, this cyberattack is different from the one that occurred in early March against the Microsoft Exchange messaging service, which affected tens of thousands of American organizations and servers around the world. In a coordinated warning, the United States, the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, as well as NATO have each to their way, officially attributed, on July 19, this attack to China, although the latter denied any involvement. An attack in which the APT31 and APT40 groups were considered to be the main perpetrators.
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France is currently the subject of a major cyberattack, and in a relatively unprecedented way, the French authorities decided, Wednesday, July 21, to attribute it fairly head-on to a foreign power, indicating that they had identified the modus operandi of ‘a group of hackers traditionally affiliated with China. An approach assumed by the director general of the National Agency for the security of information systems (Anssi), Guillaume Poupard in person, Wednesday, at the end of the morning.
While Paris is usually very remote from this type of public denunciation – against the backdrop of the United States, in particular – the announcement of this cyberattack was made in an atypical manner via a post by Mr. Poupard on his LinkedIn account. . A post where he sees this attack as “Much more serious than the winged donkeys and their avatars”, in a thinly veiled reference to the “Pegasus” affair, and refers to a statement from the Governmental Center for Monitoring, Alert and Response to Computer Attacks (CERT), as is customary.
Entitled “APT31 operating mode attack campaign targeting France”, this press release dated July 21 indicates “Than a vast campaign of compromise affecting many French entities” is ” In progress “. “Particularly virulent”, it is driven by “The APT31 operating mode”, is it specified. The word China is not written there as such, but cyber specialists consider APT31 (for « advanced persistent threat ») as a group of hackers working from this country, generally on behalf of the Chinese state, and often for purposes of espionage or theft of intellectual property.
The targets of this cyberattack have not been specified at this stage by Anssi. But it is their importance, as well as the scale and gravity of the attack that would have prompted such communication. According to the investigations carried out by the specialists of the agency, the hackers would have compromised routers “To use them as an anonymization relay, prior to carrying out reconnaissance and attack actions”. Research is underway to establish whether or not these actions have resulted in real compromises, since the start of 2021.
Investigations regularly opened in France
According to our information, this cyberattack is different from the one that occurred in early March against the Microsoft Exchange messaging service, which affected tens of thousands of American organizations and servers around the world. In a coordinated warning, the United States, the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, as well as NATO have each to their way, officially attributed, on July 19, this attack to China, although the latter denied any involvement. An attack in which the APT31 and APT40 groups were considered to be the main perpetrators.
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“The Brussels bureaucrats threaten us”… It is in these terms that Viktor Orban, the Hungarian nationalist prime minister, announced, Wednesday, July 21, the organization of a referendum on his much contested law prohibiting “To show homosexuality and gender change” to minors.
Adopted on June 15, this text, which equates homosexuality with pedophilia, has aroused strong criticism from the European Commission, which on July 15 began the first stage of a sanction procedure against Budapest.
“Brussels asks us for amendments, because they do not agree with the fact that we do not want to allow what is already a habit in Western Europe. There, LGBT activists visit nurseries and schools to conduct sex education classes ”, denounced Mr. Orban in a brief video posted on Facebook.
The so-called “anti-pedophile” law adopted by Fidesz, the Prime Minister’s party, provides in particular to prohibit homosexual associations from intervening in all schools, but also to prevent the distribution, to minors, of all television, advertising or artistic content ” representing ” homosexuals.
A copy of the referendum on the reception of migrants
The European Commission considers that this text is contrary to “Equality and [au] respect for dignity and human rights which are fundamental values of the European Union ”.
” Abuse of power “, replied Mr. Orban in his video, announcing that five questions would be asked of the Hungarians. In particular, voters will have to say whether they are in favor “Promoting sex reassignment treatments for children”, “teaching children about sexual orientation without parental consent” or to “Unrestricted exposure of children to media content of a sexual nature”. Unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister called for a vote no to all these questions for «Stops Brussels».
He did not specify a date but the daily power, Hungarian Nation, referred to “January or, at the latest, February [2022] “. Either just before the next legislative elections, scheduled for April 2022. The hero of the European far right did not hide that he was copying, with this referendum, the one he had organized in 2016 on the issue of hospitality migrants, at a time when the European Commission had opened a sanction procedure against Hungary’s refusal to welcome asylum seekers on its soil.
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“The Brussels bureaucrats threaten us”… It is in these terms that Viktor Orban, the Hungarian nationalist prime minister, announced, Wednesday, July 21, the organization of a referendum on his much contested law prohibiting “To show homosexuality and gender change” to minors.
Adopted on June 15, this text, which equates homosexuality with pedophilia, has aroused strong criticism from the European Commission, which on July 15 began the first stage of a sanction procedure against Budapest.
“Brussels asks us for amendments, because they do not agree with the fact that we do not want to allow what is already a habit in Western Europe. There, LGBT activists visit nurseries and schools to conduct sex education classes ”, denounced Mr. Orban in a brief video posted on Facebook.
The so-called “anti-pedophile” law adopted by Fidesz, the Prime Minister’s party, provides in particular to prohibit homosexual associations from intervening in all schools, but also to prevent the distribution, to minors, of all television, advertising or artistic content ” representing ” homosexuals.
A copy of the referendum on the reception of migrants
The European Commission considers that this text is contrary to “Equality and [au] respect for dignity and human rights which are fundamental values of the European Union ”.
” Abuse of power “, replied Mr. Orban in his video, announcing that five questions would be asked of the Hungarians. In particular, voters will have to say whether they are in favor “Promoting sex reassignment treatments for children”, “teaching children about sexual orientation without parental consent” or to “Unrestricted exposure of children to media content of a sexual nature”. Unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister called for a vote no to all these questions for «Stops Brussels».
He did not specify a date but the daily power, Hungarian Nation, referred to “January or, at the latest, February [2022] “. Either just before the next legislative elections, scheduled for April 2022. The hero of the European far right did not hide that he was copying, with this referendum, the one he had organized in 2016 on the issue of hospitality migrants, at a time when the European Commission had opened a sanction procedure against Hungary’s refusal to welcome asylum seekers on its soil.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson chose the day before the truce of the British Parliament – and the day of the Belgian National Day – to signify in Brussels, Wednesday, July 21, that he wanted to renegotiate as a whole the very sensitive Northern Irish protocol.
Is the ultimate provocation before the summer break, a political gesture towards a loyalist community at bay or a real concern to improve a text deemed inadequate? “We will not accept a renegotiation of the protocol”, replied Maros Sefcovic, the vice-president of the European Commission, preferring not to immediately play the escalation.
The Northern Irish Protocol is a crucial part of the UK-European Union (EU) Divorce Treaty. Entered into force in early 2021, it governs the dual status of Northern Ireland, with the province still part of the United Kingdom, but remaining in the EU’s internal market for goods. The aim is to avoid the return of a land border with the Republic of Ireland and not to jeopardize the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the “unrest” in 1998.
The protocol had been validated by the Johnson government at the end of 2019, which, at the time, was pleased to have succeeded in reaching this agreement with the EU. But since the start of the year, London has been reluctant to apply the text and carry out the necessary customs controls for goods transiting from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
A weak link between London and Belfast
Faced with British insistence, Brussels made concessions, still agreeing, at the end of June, to extend until the end of September the implementation of customs controls on prepared and minced meat. Not enough for Boris Johnson, who, in a report released on Wednesday, claims that“It is now clear that we cannot apply these provisions [douanières] in a sustainable way, at least not in the inflexible way the EU wants ”. The Prime Minister goes so far as to threaten to activate Article 16 of the protocol, allowing its unilateral suspension, if Brussels does not agree to rewrite the text …
Speaking in the House of Commons, Lord Frost, the minister responsible for Europe, added refusing to go “From period of grace to period of grace” and claimed a « pause » in the application of the protocol to allow time for renegotiation. London is demanding that customs controls be carried out only on products passing through Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. And refuses that the Court of Justice of the EU still has a say in the governance of the protocol.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson chose the day before the truce of the British Parliament – and the day of the Belgian National Day – to signify in Brussels, Wednesday, July 21, that he wanted to renegotiate as a whole the very sensitive Northern Irish protocol.
Is the ultimate provocation before the summer break, a political gesture towards a loyalist community at bay or a real concern to improve a text deemed inadequate? “We will not accept a renegotiation of the protocol”, replied Maros Sefcovic, the vice-president of the European Commission, preferring not to immediately play the escalation.
The Northern Irish Protocol is a crucial part of the UK-European Union (EU) Divorce Treaty. Entered into force in early 2021, it governs the dual status of Northern Ireland, with the province still part of the United Kingdom, but remaining in the EU’s internal market for goods. The aim is to avoid the return of a land border with the Republic of Ireland and not to jeopardize the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the “unrest” in 1998.
The protocol had been validated by the Johnson government at the end of 2019, which, at the time, was pleased to have succeeded in reaching this agreement with the EU. But since the start of the year, London has been reluctant to apply the text and carry out the necessary customs controls for goods transiting from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
A weak link between London and Belfast
Faced with British insistence, Brussels made concessions, still agreeing, at the end of June, to extend until the end of September the implementation of customs controls on prepared and minced meat. Not enough for Boris Johnson, who, in a report released on Wednesday, claims that“It is now clear that we cannot apply these provisions [douanières] in a sustainable way, at least not in the inflexible way the EU wants ”. The Prime Minister goes so far as to threaten to activate Article 16 of the protocol, allowing its unilateral suspension, if Brussels does not agree to rewrite the text …
Speaking in the House of Commons, Lord Frost, the minister responsible for Europe, added refusing to go “From period of grace to period of grace” and claimed a « pause » in the application of the protocol to allow time for renegotiation. London is demanding that customs controls be carried out only on products passing through Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. And refuses that the Court of Justice of the EU still has a say in the governance of the protocol.
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Ne especially not wanting to react hot to the assassination of the Haitian Head of State, I declined the solicitations of journalists. To react on the spot is often to cut off an event of its deep causalities. Through the inevitable shortcuts by which we process the information that makes the headline, we end up feeding, in spite of ourselves, the abyssal reservoir of clichés and prejudices. And when such a spectacular event has taken place in a country like Haiti, the temptation is even greater to turn to the abyss of clichés.
Because Haiti, more than any territory, has this capacity to panic the logos for those who do not want or cannot get out of their intellectual comfort zone, as this island is at the same time emblematic, recalcitrant and disturbing. However, who has not grasped the place held by Haiti in this modernity, this dominant world-model in its genesis, its transatlantic deployment, will see in these events nothing but fire, namely again a coup d’etat, again poverty, more blood and, above all, still these negroes.
The events in Haiti must always be linked to an inescapable bundle of explanations which can be summed up in a few points: its unthinkable independence in 1804 (defeating slavery, colonialism and nascent capitalism) at the time when the Western powers s’ were preparing to consolidate their world empire in the XIXe century. Independence which made it the first country of the South, therefore the mold and the matrix (I cannot say it enough) of North-South relations.
She will know before the others all the avatars: quarantine (one would say today embargo) decided by all the colonialist powers of the time, payment of an indemnity to the former French colonists of Saint-Domingue to be able to leave. forty twenty years. This burdened her start-up with a heavy mortgage and at the same time dragged her hands and feet into a spiral of debt that she would not finish paying until the middle of the 20th century.e century. Haiti, however, during this difficult period of quarantine, helped Bolivar to liberate five Latin American countries and even Greece to wrest its independence.
Politics of the great powers
Laurent Dubois in New World Avengers (Les Perséides, 2006) reports that, already in 1801, in a conversation with the representative of France and England around the possible independence of Saint-Domingue, the American President Jefferson (1743-1826) defined for the ‘Empire the conditions under which the future state, a bad example for the slave countries of the region, should exist. “Just don’t allow black people to own ships. ” In short, Haiti will be able to exist as a large village of maroons, there is no question of accepting it in the concert of nations. But it’s been a long time all the same, you will tell me. And since ? Alas, the spirit, and even the letter of the subject have endured and justified a policy of the great powers throughout the XIXe century to the present day.
You have 69.48% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Ne especially not wanting to react hot to the assassination of the Haitian Head of State, I declined the solicitations of journalists. To react on the spot is often to cut off an event of its deep causalities. Through the inevitable shortcuts by which we process the information that makes the headline, we end up feeding, in spite of ourselves, the abyssal reservoir of clichés and prejudices. And when such a spectacular event has taken place in a country like Haiti, the temptation is even greater to turn to the abyss of clichés.
Because Haiti, more than any territory, has this capacity to panic the logos for those who do not want or cannot get out of their intellectual comfort zone, as this island is at the same time emblematic, recalcitrant and disturbing. However, who has not grasped the place held by Haiti in this modernity, this dominant world-model in its genesis, its transatlantic deployment, will see in these events nothing but fire, namely again a coup d’etat, again poverty, more blood and, above all, still these negroes.
The events in Haiti must always be linked to an inescapable bundle of explanations which can be summed up in a few points: its unthinkable independence in 1804 (defeating slavery, colonialism and nascent capitalism) at the time when the Western powers s’ were preparing to consolidate their world empire in the XIXe century. Independence which made it the first country of the South, therefore the mold and the matrix (I cannot say it enough) of North-South relations.
She will know before the others all the avatars: quarantine (one would say today embargo) decided by all the colonialist powers of the time, payment of an indemnity to the former French colonists of Saint-Domingue to be able to leave. forty twenty years. This burdened her start-up with a heavy mortgage and at the same time dragged her hands and feet into a spiral of debt that she would not finish paying until the middle of the 20th century.e century. Haiti, however, during this difficult period of quarantine, helped Bolivar to liberate five Latin American countries and even Greece to wrest its independence.
Politics of the great powers
Laurent Dubois in New World Avengers (Les Perséides, 2006) reports that, already in 1801, in a conversation with the representative of France and England around the possible independence of Saint-Domingue, the American President Jefferson (1743-1826) defined for the ‘Empire the conditions under which the future state, a bad example for the slave countries of the region, should exist. “Just don’t allow black people to own ships. ” In short, Haiti will be able to exist as a large village of maroons, there is no question of accepting it in the concert of nations. But it’s been a long time all the same, you will tell me. And since ? Alas, the spirit, and even the letter of the subject have endured and justified a policy of the great powers throughout the XIXe century to the present day.
You have 69.48% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
The US and German governments announced Wednesday, July 21, an agreement to end their dispute over the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany. In a joint declaration, Washington and Berlin pose the threat of new sanctions in the event of Moscow slipping in the use of this project, and pledge to try to compensate the losses for Ukraine, which will be deprived of a part of the transit of Russian gas through the future gas pipeline.
“Should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon or commit other aggressive acts against Ukraine, Germany will take action at the national level, and push for effective measures at the national level. European Union, including sanctions, to limit Russian export capacities to Europe in the energy sector ”, say the two allied countries.
They also plead for the gas to continue to “Transit through Ukraine after 2024”, deadline currently provided for in an agreement with Russia. “Germany undertakes to use all its means of pressure to facilitate an extension of up to ten additional years” of this transit agreement, and will name “A special envoy to support these negotiations” by 1is September, according to the joint statement.
Finally, Berlin promised to ” to create “ a “Green fund” for “Supporting Ukraine’s energy transition”, initially matched by Germany to the tune of at least 150 million euros, in order to “Promote and support investments for at least a billion dollars” especially from the private sector.
The head of German diplomacy, Heiko Maas, expressed his ” relief “ facing this « solution constructive ». And, according to Moscow, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin said they were together “Satisfied to see that the construction of Nord Stream 2” was “About to be completed”.
In fact, the US-German agreement seems to remove the last obstacles to its completion. The US government argued that the end of the work was now inevitable and therefore did everything to present this compromise as a lesser evil.
Joe Biden criticized
The United States has strongly opposed this pipeline for years. They deplore that it passes by the Baltic Sea, but not by Ukraine, threatening to deprive this country of part of the revenues collected on the transit, but also of a means of pressure on Moscow.
Joe Biden, however, ended up in the spring by giving up imposing sanctions to block the project, believing that it was too late and that it was better to bet on cooperation with Germany – in favor of Nord Stream 2. This reverse has earned the US president criticism from Republicans, but also from many tenors of his Democratic camp.
During her visit to Washington last week, Angela Merkel reaffirmed that Ukraine must stay “A transit country” for Russian gas, while Joe Biden had said to share with her “The conviction that Russia should not be allowed to use energy as a weapon”. Statements that laid the groundwork for the agreement announced Wednesday.
Without waiting for the details, the Republicans had denounced this compromise on Tuesday. “We always knew that Biden shared Putin’s bed, now they are cuddling”, taunted, provocatively, the Trumpist Senator Ted Cruz, evoking a ” gift “ allowing “Russian dictators” from “To do energy blackmail” to Europe.
The number three in American diplomacy, Victoria Nuland, replied on Wednesday that the Biden government had inherited a Nord Stream 2 “More than 90% complete”, and therefore impossible to stop, whereas in 2016, when Donald Trump arrived at the White House, the United States was, according to her, “In the process of blocking the gas pipeline”. She also had to deny reports that Washington had pressured the Ukrainian authorities to silence their criticism, citing “Close consultations” with Kiev.
The White House immediately announced that President Joe Biden would receive his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on August 30. But Ukraine and Poland nevertheless reaffirmed, in the wake of the US-German agreement, that Nord Stream 2 was a threat to all of Central Europe.
The US and German governments announced Wednesday, July 21, an agreement to end their dispute over the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany. In a joint declaration, Washington and Berlin pose the threat of new sanctions in the event of Moscow slipping in the use of this project, and pledge to try to compensate the losses for Ukraine, which will be deprived of a part of the transit of Russian gas through the future gas pipeline.
“Should Russia attempt to use energy as a weapon or commit other aggressive acts against Ukraine, Germany will take action at the national level, and push for effective measures at the national level. European Union, including sanctions, to limit Russian export capacities to Europe in the energy sector ”, say the two allied countries.
They also plead for the gas to continue to “Transit through Ukraine after 2024”, deadline currently provided for in an agreement with Russia. “Germany undertakes to use all its means of pressure to facilitate an extension of up to ten additional years” of this transit agreement, and will name “A special envoy to support these negotiations” by 1is September, according to the joint statement.
Finally, Berlin promised to ” to create “ a “Green fund” for “Supporting Ukraine’s energy transition”, initially matched by Germany to the tune of at least 150 million euros, in order to “Promote and support investments for at least a billion dollars” especially from the private sector.
The head of German diplomacy, Heiko Maas, expressed his ” relief “ facing this « solution constructive ». And, according to Moscow, Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin said they were together “Satisfied to see that the construction of Nord Stream 2” was “About to be completed”.
In fact, the US-German agreement seems to remove the last obstacles to its completion. The US government argued that the end of the work was now inevitable and therefore did everything to present this compromise as a lesser evil.
Joe Biden criticized
The United States has strongly opposed this pipeline for years. They deplore that it passes by the Baltic Sea, but not by Ukraine, threatening to deprive this country of part of the revenues collected on the transit, but also of a means of pressure on Moscow.
Joe Biden, however, ended up in the spring by giving up imposing sanctions to block the project, believing that it was too late and that it was better to bet on cooperation with Germany – in favor of Nord Stream 2. This reverse has earned the US president criticism from Republicans, but also from many tenors of his Democratic camp.
During her visit to Washington last week, Angela Merkel reaffirmed that Ukraine must stay “A transit country” for Russian gas, while Joe Biden had said to share with her “The conviction that Russia should not be allowed to use energy as a weapon”. Statements that laid the groundwork for the agreement announced Wednesday.
Without waiting for the details, the Republicans had denounced this compromise on Tuesday. “We always knew that Biden shared Putin’s bed, now they are cuddling”, taunted, provocatively, the Trumpist Senator Ted Cruz, evoking a ” gift “ allowing “Russian dictators” from “To do energy blackmail” to Europe.
The number three in American diplomacy, Victoria Nuland, replied on Wednesday that the Biden government had inherited a Nord Stream 2 “More than 90% complete”, and therefore impossible to stop, whereas in 2016, when Donald Trump arrived at the White House, the United States was, according to her, “In the process of blocking the gas pipeline”. She also had to deny reports that Washington had pressured the Ukrainian authorities to silence their criticism, citing “Close consultations” with Kiev.
The White House immediately announced that President Joe Biden would receive his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on August 30. But Ukraine and Poland nevertheless reaffirmed, in the wake of the US-German agreement, that Nord Stream 2 was a threat to all of Central Europe.
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty on Wednesday July 21 in Los Angeles court to eleven charges of sexual assault and rape of five women in California. Judge Sergio Tapia recorded the statement after a lawyer spoke on behalf of the accused, present in the courtroom in a wheelchair and wearing a brown jumpsuit.
Harvey Weinstein – whose fall is seen as a major victory for the #metoo movement – has been serving a twenty-three-year prison sentence for sexual assault and rape in New York since 2020. He was transferred Tuesday to Los Angeles, the city where he once had a great influence, to answer the new charges.
One hundred and forty years in prison incurred
In California, Harvey Weinstein is notably accused of having raped a female Italian model in a Beverly Hills hotel in February 2013, then of sexually assaulting Lauren Young, an aspiring actress, in the bathroom of another hotel. . He faces up to one hundred and forty years in prison, in addition to his New York conviction. “Anyone who abuses their power and influence to attack others will be brought to justice”, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon said.
For his part, Mr. Weinstein has always denied the facts, in New York as in Los Angeles, affirming that his accusers were consenting. In early April, he formally appealed his conviction for rape and sexual assault in New York, handed down in March 2020 after a resounding trial.
In total, nearly 90 women have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment or assault. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 29.
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty on Wednesday July 21 in Los Angeles court to eleven charges of sexual assault and rape of five women in California. Judge Sergio Tapia recorded the statement after a lawyer spoke on behalf of the accused, present in the courtroom in a wheelchair and wearing a brown jumpsuit.
Harvey Weinstein – whose fall is seen as a major victory for the #metoo movement – has been serving a twenty-three-year prison sentence for sexual assault and rape in New York since 2020. He was transferred Tuesday to Los Angeles, the city where he once had a great influence, to answer the new charges.
One hundred and forty years in prison incurred
In California, Harvey Weinstein is notably accused of having raped a female Italian model in a Beverly Hills hotel in February 2013, then of sexually assaulting Lauren Young, an aspiring actress, in the bathroom of another hotel. . He faces up to one hundred and forty years in prison, in addition to his New York conviction. “Anyone who abuses their power and influence to attack others will be brought to justice”, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon said.
For his part, Mr. Weinstein has always denied the facts, in New York as in Los Angeles, affirming that his accusers were consenting. In early April, he formally appealed his conviction for rape and sexual assault in New York, handed down in March 2020 after a resounding trial.
In total, nearly 90 women have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment or assault. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 29.
Peru will have had to wait forty-three days to know the name of its new president. On Monday July 19, the candidate of the radical left, Pedro Castillo, was finally proclaimed the winner of the second round of the presidential election on June 6, with 44,263 votes ahead of his rival, Keiko Fujimori (populist right). She exhausted all possible remedies to try to invalidate the vote, crying out for non-existent fraud. The electoral authorities and five international observer missions had assured that the ballot had taken place in full transparency.
“Here is my open heart for each of you”, said the 51-year-old former teacher and trade unionist in Lima from the balcony of the party headquarters that brought him to power, free Peru. He promised to “Make a government of all Peruvians, of all bloods, without any discrimination, without looking askance at the natives, the Afro-Peruvian brothers”, while ensuring wanting “Guarantee legal and economic stability” from the country.
The speech was meant to be reassuring and unifying, while Peru has rarely been so polarized between two candidacies. During his campaign, Mr. Castillo had proposed a series of nationalizations and the end of certain imports to strengthen the local industry. Keiko Fujimori had accused him of wanting to lead the country to ruin and dictatorship. Considering “Illegitimate” the victory of M. Castillo, it had stirred up a hatred of race and class; in recent days, supporters of Mme Fujimori physically attacked Mr. Castillo’s activists, officials or journalists.
A very divided Congress
Keiko Fujimori, who is under investigation for alleged bribes during her 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns, in which she had previously failed in the second round, has had no choice but to acknowledge her third defeat, but, she recalled, “Peru needs all the social and political forces united in the great work of stopping communism”. At the beginning of March, thirty years of imprisonment were required against the leader of Fuerza popular, the party created by her father, the 82-year-old ex-president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who is serving a twenty-five-year sentence. prison for corruption and crimes against humanity.
Fuerza popular is no longer, with 24 seats, more than the second force of a very divided Congress, where ten parties share the 130 seats. He held 73 in 2020. Mr. Castillo’s party – with 37 seats and five others from Juntos por el Peru (left), which has promised to support him – is the first force, but still too much of a minority for him. allow to govern as it pleases. He does not count on the support of the army or the media.
You have 45.66% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Peru will have had to wait forty-three days to know the name of its new president. On Monday July 19, the candidate of the radical left, Pedro Castillo, was finally proclaimed the winner of the second round of the presidential election on June 6, with 44,263 votes ahead of his rival, Keiko Fujimori (populist right). She exhausted all possible remedies to try to invalidate the vote, crying out for non-existent fraud. The electoral authorities and five international observer missions had assured that the ballot had taken place in full transparency.
“Here is my open heart for each of you”, said the 51-year-old former teacher and trade unionist in Lima from the balcony of the party headquarters that brought him to power, free Peru. He promised to “Make a government of all Peruvians, of all bloods, without any discrimination, without looking askance at the natives, the Afro-Peruvian brothers”, while ensuring wanting “Guarantee legal and economic stability” from the country.
The speech was meant to be reassuring and unifying, while Peru has rarely been so polarized between two candidacies. During his campaign, Mr. Castillo had proposed a series of nationalizations and the end of certain imports to strengthen the local industry. Keiko Fujimori had accused him of wanting to lead the country to ruin and dictatorship. Considering “Illegitimate” the victory of M. Castillo, it had stirred up a hatred of race and class; in recent days, supporters of Mme Fujimori physically attacked Mr. Castillo’s activists, officials or journalists.
A very divided Congress
Keiko Fujimori, who is under investigation for alleged bribes during her 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns, in which she had previously failed in the second round, has had no choice but to acknowledge her third defeat, but, she recalled, “Peru needs all the social and political forces united in the great work of stopping communism”. At the beginning of March, thirty years of imprisonment were required against the leader of Fuerza popular, the party created by her father, the 82-year-old ex-president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who is serving a twenty-five-year sentence. prison for corruption and crimes against humanity.
Fuerza popular is no longer, with 24 seats, more than the second force of a very divided Congress, where ten parties share the 130 seats. He held 73 in 2020. Mr. Castillo’s party – with 37 seats and five others from Juntos por el Peru (left), which has promised to support him – is the first force, but still too much of a minority for him. allow to govern as it pleases. He does not count on the support of the army or the media.
You have 45.66% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
The rains that hit Zhengzhou on Tuesday July 20 are the heaviest ever. In twenty-four hours, the capital of Henan received 552 millimeters of precipitation, or 86 percent of the annual average, including more than 200 millimeters in just one hour. In the city located south of the tumultuous yellow river, water has invaded the streets, houses and businesses. The metro was submerged, trapping hundreds of riders, at least 12 of whom drowned.
By Wednesday, the rain had stopped falling and water had drained through most neighborhoods, giving way to a devastated cityscape: streets covered in mud, hundreds of cars piled up, and the tunnels and underground spaces that remained. submerged. At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, local authorities reported 25 dead, 7 missing and 1,240,737 people affected. The toll is expected to increase in the coming days.
On Wednesday morning, Chinese President Xi Jinping saw the scale of the disaster: “Dams have collapsed, causing serious injuries, deaths and damage. The situation on the flood front is extremely serious ”, he said, according to national television. On Tuesday, the footage filmed in Zhengzhou by locals was particularly impressive.
Streets have been turned into torrents, sweeping away hundreds of vehicles, roads have collapsed. Some videos show human chains organized to pull passers-by caught in the waves. Other images, of people being carried away. In the countryside, also very affected, a refugee resident on the roof of her house calls for help on a video posted online: ” Help ! who can come and help me? “she sobs, as her portal barely protrudes above the surface of the water.
“Kindergartens were open”
In the Zhengzhou metro, hundreds of riders were trapped. After the oars stopped in the middle of the track, they saw the water gradually rise. If some were able to get out of the wagons, and film themselves evacuating the premises by walking on thin sidewalks, others could not get out of the cars. Stuck inside, they watched helplessly as the waters gradually rose. A woman writes: “My laptop is running out of battery soon, this is my last video, I may be going to die”. The water rose to the shoulders of the users and some passed out, apparently from lack of oxygen, according to testimonies. The emergency services opened the roof of the trains to evacuate the passengers. At least 17 of them died and dozens were injured.
You have 54.97% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
The rains that hit Zhengzhou on Tuesday July 20 are the heaviest ever. In twenty-four hours, the capital of Henan received 552 millimeters of precipitation, or 86 percent of the annual average, including more than 200 millimeters in just one hour. In the city located south of the tumultuous yellow river, water has invaded the streets, houses and businesses. The metro was submerged, trapping hundreds of riders, at least 12 of whom drowned.
By Wednesday, the rain had stopped falling and water had drained through most neighborhoods, giving way to a devastated cityscape: streets covered in mud, hundreds of cars piled up, and the tunnels and underground spaces that remained. submerged. At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, local authorities reported 25 dead, 7 missing and 1,240,737 people affected. The toll is expected to increase in the coming days.
On Wednesday morning, Chinese President Xi Jinping saw the scale of the disaster: “Dams have collapsed, causing serious injuries, deaths and damage. The situation on the flood front is extremely serious ”, he said, according to national television. On Tuesday, the footage filmed in Zhengzhou by locals was particularly impressive.
Streets have been turned into torrents, sweeping away hundreds of vehicles, roads have collapsed. Some videos show human chains organized to pull passers-by caught in the waves. Other images, of people being carried away. In the countryside, also very affected, a refugee resident on the roof of her house calls for help on a video posted online: ” Help ! who can come and help me? “she sobs, as her portal barely protrudes above the surface of the water.
“Kindergartens were open”
In the Zhengzhou metro, hundreds of riders were trapped. After the oars stopped in the middle of the track, they saw the water gradually rise. If some were able to get out of the wagons, and film themselves evacuating the premises by walking on thin sidewalks, others could not get out of the cars. Stuck inside, they watched helplessly as the waters gradually rose. A woman writes: “My laptop is running out of battery soon, this is my last video, I may be going to die”. The water rose to the shoulders of the users and some passed out, apparently from lack of oxygen, according to testimonies. The emergency services opened the roof of the trains to evacuate the passengers. At least 17 of them died and dozens were injured.
You have 54.97% of this article to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
To stay up to date with African news, subscribe to the “Monde Afrique” newsletter from this link. Every Saturday at 6 am, find a week of current events and debates treated by the editorial staff of “Monde Afrique”.
Not all of Juba’s historic buildings have survived the real estate frenzy that gripped South Sudan’s capital at the end of the Second Civil War in 2005. The destruction that caused the greatest stir was that, in 2006, of the legendary Juba Hotel, an establishment built by the colonial administration when the city was created in the 1930s.
Other relics in Juba’s history have been a little more fortunate. Although it has lost its primary function, the building of the legendary Juba cinema has not disappeared. It survived the war, years of abandonment and demolitions, and today houses… a church.
It was a Greek merchant, Anthony Crassas, who built the Juba Picture House in 1953 and inaugurated it the following year, in a part of the city which was still at the time separated from the others by pristine nature. . In a work to be published by Editions De Gruyter, the historian Brendan Tuttle retraces the epic of this room that the inhabitants quite simply called “” The cinema “, since it was the only one in the city”, he notes.
“When the Juba Picture House opened on the border between the hospital and the Native Lodging Area [le quartier construit pour héberger les travailleurs locaux, clairement séparé de la zone habitée par les colons et administrateurs], it has attracted all segments of Juba society: families, lovers, intellectuals, entertainment enthusiasts, young people, children, ticket sellers and hawkers of all kinds ”, writes the historian.
Abandoned for twenty years
The cinema having quickly become a place of intense social life, it gave its name to this district today still called Hai Cinema (“the cinema district” in local Arabic), even if the cinema ceased to operate there. is almost forty years old.
In 1972, the original owner, this Greek who the regulars nicknamed « Anton », had sold the business to a North Sudanese. “We called him Khawaja [nom local donné aux étrangers et surtout aux Blancs] because he had fair skin “, confides Peter Loro Paulino, in his sixties, now a member of the Juba city council, who went to the cinema a lot in his heyday.
This « Khawaja » kept the store running until it closed by order of the authorities in 1984. “There was an incident in which a grenade was thrown into the cinema”, he thinks he remembers. The cinema has lowered its curtain for good, as the Second Sudanese Civil War was just beginning.
The building was abandoned for twenty years, until a Dinka businessman – the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups are the two most numerous in South Sudan – Garang Deng Aguer bought it from his owners in the year of the comprehensive peace agreement, signed in 2005 between the southern rebellion and the power of Khartoum.
Converted into a church
In the process, “The elders of the Anglican Dinka congregation of Juba requested him and he agreed to give us the building”, tells the Reverend Peter Mading Deng, pastor in post for two years at the church which took up residence in the old cinema, the parish Emmanuel. “It was a totally rotten building when we acquired it”, he recalls.
Two years of renovation were necessary before the church opened in 2008. “We added two extensions, an altar and benches were given to us by Mama Rebecca”, the widow of John Garang, spearhead of the South Sudanese rebels who died in 2005. “There was nothing left inside and the few cinematographic equipment was in very poor condition”, explains the pastor.
The faithful are all from the Dinka community and Masses are held only in this language. But the pastor wants “Introduce a service mixing Arabic and English”, just as he hopes to open a radio studio, instead of the projection booth. This was at the back of the building and, high up, between the two balconies which are accessed by a double flight of stairs.
This is where the most expensive seats were in the days of cinema. Only the families of Arab, Greek, Syrian merchants and the notables of the city could afford to occupy them. The rest of the spectators were content with the second class, in the middle of the room, or even the third, the most populated: “Uncomfortable stools, practically glued to the screen”, remembers Wilson Mamur Kuyan, another member of the municipal council, native of Juba.
Parental forbidden
Some members of Emmanuel Parish, although from elsewhere, are old enough to have known those bygone days. Aluel Nhial Makol, an active church member, 52, was a child when she arrived in Juba from her hometown of Bor in 1973 and was staying with an uncle who had a house near the cinema. The girl spoke only Dinka.
“I never left the house because I did not understand Arabic”, she explains. One day, her brother still took her to see an Indian musical. “It was the first time that I saw a film, and also the first time that I saw white people”, she recalls.
The session did not end very well: “Suddenly the man and woman started kissing onscreen, we’ve never seen that. With my sister, we started to cry and hid our faces until our brother got us out! “
She only returned to the cinema once, a few years later, braving the parental ban with two friends to see an Egyptian film, which they did not “Not understood the dialogues”. This was the last session for her. Her brother never wanted to take her again: “People who go to the cinema become drunkards, criminals, prostitutes …”, he had hit him. According to him, “If I went to the movies, I could never be married”, she recalls.
Small ticket traffic
The young boys of Juba encountered the same reluctance from their parents, worried about the influence of foreign films on their offspring. “My father refused to let us go to the movies. He said that was going to make us violent and make us thieves ”, recalls Wilson Mamur Kuyan. “So I would sneak into the cinema during the day to see the films while they were preparing for the sessions, he continues. And then one fine day, my father agreed to let us go. “
Even the youngest managed to get tickets. Peter Loro Paulino remembers how “Four ‘big guys’ called Faki, Laki, Marfa’in and Loron managed to be the first at the little window through which tickets were bought. And they were reselling them for a profit! “. The kids were piling up at the front of the room and the magic could begin.
First trailers and then a fictional film, usually a Hollywood western or a musical from India. “What attracted us, the guns, the clothes, these new civilizations… It was totally different from our lives! “, says Wilson Mamur Kuyan.
The man remembers perfectly the atmosphere which reigned in the room: “At the start of the movie, you were quiet to figure out what was going on, and then, once you started supporting a character, you would automatically start screaming. You tried to warn him when another attacked him! “
Political place
“Once a man brought a spear. And when the action got too dangerous for the hero, he threw it on the screen to kill his enemy! Then the spears were banned in the cinema ”, he remembers with amusement. Peter Loro Paulino confirms: “We thought what was going on in the movie was true. We were afraid that the horses would come off the screen! And then, often, we fell asleep before the end of the film when we had been waiting for this moment all week. “
Today the building resonates with other voices and other beliefs. But history seems to want to invite itself in this building which, in 1954, housed the founding convention of the Liberal Party, the first political party in South Sudan.
In May 2016, it was the painful story of the fratricidal struggles between the Nuer and the Dinka that disrupted the mass. Protesters had invaded the church to demand the resignation of the pastor considered too lenient with the rebels of Riek Machar. The latter had come the previous week to preach reconciliation to the faithful of Emmanuel parish, mostly Dinka.
Church authorities had stood their ground “To these provocateurs manipulated by politicians”, remembers Pastor Peter Mading Deng. For him, the church must “Change people’s hearts”. Finally, a bit like the cinema in its day.
African cinemas
The World Africa and his correspondents went to meet African cinemas. Those of a lost golden age as in Ivory Coast or Algeria where, a few decades ago, people flocked to dark rooms to discover the latest action films or rediscover the classics of national creation.
“Cinemas did not survive the switch from analog to digital” of the early 2000s, regrets the Ivorian film critic Yacouba Sangaré. There as elsewhere, the seventh art had to take side roads to continue to reach its audience. Video stores – from VHS tapes to DVDs – have nurtured a generation of moviegoers.
Some today are trying to revive mythical venues and their demanding programming, as in Morocco or Burkina Faso. Others see in the series a new mode of fertile creation. From fans of the Tangier film library to the conservative cinema of Kannywood, in northern Nigeria, they make African cinema today.
To stay up to date with African news, subscribe to the “Monde Afrique” newsletter from this link. Every Saturday at 6 am, find a week of current events and debates treated by the editorial staff of “Monde Afrique”.
Not all of Juba’s historic buildings have survived the real estate frenzy that gripped South Sudan’s capital at the end of the Second Civil War in 2005. The destruction that caused the greatest stir was that, in 2006, of the legendary Juba Hotel, an establishment built by the colonial administration when the city was created in the 1930s.
Other relics in Juba’s history have been a little more fortunate. Although it has lost its primary function, the building of the legendary Juba cinema has not disappeared. It survived the war, years of abandonment and demolitions, and today houses… a church.
It was a Greek merchant, Anthony Crassas, who built the Juba Picture House in 1953 and inaugurated it the following year, in a part of the city which was still at the time separated from the others by pristine nature. . In a work to be published by Editions De Gruyter, the historian Brendan Tuttle retraces the epic of this room that the inhabitants quite simply called “” The cinema “, since it was the only one in the city”, he notes.
“When the Juba Picture House opened on the border between the hospital and the Native Lodging Area [le quartier construit pour héberger les travailleurs locaux, clairement séparé de la zone habitée par les colons et administrateurs], it has attracted all segments of Juba society: families, lovers, intellectuals, entertainment enthusiasts, young people, children, ticket sellers and hawkers of all kinds ”, writes the historian.
Abandoned for twenty years
The cinema having quickly become a place of intense social life, it gave its name to this district today still called Hai Cinema (“the cinema district” in local Arabic), even if the cinema ceased to operate there. is almost forty years old.
In 1972, the original owner, this Greek who the regulars nicknamed « Anton », had sold the business to a North Sudanese. “We called him Khawaja [nom local donné aux étrangers et surtout aux Blancs] because he had fair skin “, confides Peter Loro Paulino, in his sixties, now a member of the Juba city council, who went to the cinema a lot in his heyday.
This « Khawaja » kept the store running until it closed by order of the authorities in 1984. “There was an incident in which a grenade was thrown into the cinema”, he thinks he remembers. The cinema has lowered its curtain for good, as the Second Sudanese Civil War was just beginning.
The building was abandoned for twenty years, until a Dinka businessman – the Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups are the two most numerous in South Sudan – Garang Deng Aguer bought it from his owners in the year of the comprehensive peace agreement, signed in 2005 between the southern rebellion and the power of Khartoum.
Converted into a church
In the process, “The elders of the Anglican Dinka congregation of Juba requested him and he agreed to give us the building”, tells the Reverend Peter Mading Deng, pastor in post for two years at the church which took up residence in the old cinema, the parish Emmanuel. “It was a totally rotten building when we acquired it”, he recalls.
Two years of renovation were necessary before the church opened in 2008. “We added two extensions, an altar and benches were given to us by Mama Rebecca”, the widow of John Garang, spearhead of the South Sudanese rebels who died in 2005. “There was nothing left inside and the few cinematographic equipment was in very poor condition”, explains the pastor.
The faithful are all from the Dinka community and Masses are held only in this language. But the pastor wants “Introduce a service mixing Arabic and English”, just as he hopes to open a radio studio, instead of the projection booth. This was at the back of the building and, high up, between the two balconies which are accessed by a double flight of stairs.
This is where the most expensive seats were in the days of cinema. Only the families of Arab, Greek, Syrian merchants and the notables of the city could afford to occupy them. The rest of the spectators were content with the second class, in the middle of the room, or even the third, the most populated: “Uncomfortable stools, practically glued to the screen”, remembers Wilson Mamur Kuyan, another member of the municipal council, native of Juba.
Parental forbidden
Some members of Emmanuel Parish, although from elsewhere, are old enough to have known those bygone days. Aluel Nhial Makol, an active church member, 52, was a child when she arrived in Juba from her hometown of Bor in 1973 and was staying with an uncle who had a house near the cinema. The girl spoke only Dinka.
“I never left the house because I did not understand Arabic”, she explains. One day, her brother still took her to see an Indian musical. “It was the first time that I saw a film, and also the first time that I saw white people”, she recalls.
The session did not end very well: “Suddenly the man and woman started kissing onscreen, we’ve never seen that. With my sister, we started to cry and hid our faces until our brother got us out! “
She only returned to the cinema once, a few years later, braving the parental ban with two friends to see an Egyptian film, which they did not “Not understood the dialogues”. This was the last session for her. Her brother never wanted to take her again: “People who go to the cinema become drunkards, criminals, prostitutes …”, he had hit him. According to him, “If I went to the movies, I could never be married”, she recalls.
Small ticket traffic
The young boys of Juba encountered the same reluctance from their parents, worried about the influence of foreign films on their offspring. “My father refused to let us go to the movies. He said that was going to make us violent and make us thieves ”, recalls Wilson Mamur Kuyan. “So I would sneak into the cinema during the day to see the films while they were preparing for the sessions, he continues. And then one fine day, my father agreed to let us go. “
Even the youngest managed to get tickets. Peter Loro Paulino remembers how “Four ‘big guys’ called Faki, Laki, Marfa’in and Loron managed to be the first at the little window through which tickets were bought. And they were reselling them for a profit! “. The kids were piling up at the front of the room and the magic could begin.
First trailers and then a fictional film, usually a Hollywood western or a musical from India. “What attracted us, the guns, the clothes, these new civilizations… It was totally different from our lives! “, says Wilson Mamur Kuyan.
The man remembers perfectly the atmosphere which reigned in the room: “At the start of the movie, you were quiet to figure out what was going on, and then, once you started supporting a character, you would automatically start screaming. You tried to warn him when another attacked him! “
Political place
“Once a man brought a spear. And when the action got too dangerous for the hero, he threw it on the screen to kill his enemy! Then the spears were banned in the cinema ”, he remembers with amusement. Peter Loro Paulino confirms: “We thought what was going on in the movie was true. We were afraid that the horses would come off the screen! And then, often, we fell asleep before the end of the film when we had been waiting for this moment all week. “
Today the building resonates with other voices and other beliefs. But history seems to want to invite itself in this building which, in 1954, housed the founding convention of the Liberal Party, the first political party in South Sudan.
In May 2016, it was the painful story of the fratricidal struggles between the Nuer and the Dinka that disrupted the mass. Protesters had invaded the church to demand the resignation of the pastor considered too lenient with the rebels of Riek Machar. The latter had come the previous week to preach reconciliation to the faithful of Emmanuel parish, mostly Dinka.
Church authorities had stood their ground “To these provocateurs manipulated by politicians”, remembers Pastor Peter Mading Deng. For him, the church must “Change people’s hearts”. Finally, a bit like the cinema in its day.
African cinemas
The World Africa and his correspondents went to meet African cinemas. Those of a lost golden age as in Ivory Coast or Algeria where, a few decades ago, people flocked to dark rooms to discover the latest action films or rediscover the classics of national creation.
“Cinemas did not survive the switch from analog to digital” of the early 2000s, regrets the Ivorian film critic Yacouba Sangaré. There as elsewhere, the seventh art had to take side roads to continue to reach its audience. Video stores – from VHS tapes to DVDs – have nurtured a generation of moviegoers.
Some today are trying to revive mythical venues and their demanding programming, as in Morocco or Burkina Faso. Others see in the series a new mode of fertile creation. From fans of the Tangier film library to the conservative cinema of Kannywood, in northern Nigeria, they make African cinema today.